Stonewall Jackson monument, Richmond, Virginia, United States

The Stonewall Jackson Monument in Richmond, Virginia, was erected in 1919 to honor Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson (1824-1863), a Confederate general. Jackson, a former instructor at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), gained prominence, and his nickname, for leading a Confederate victory at the 1861 First Battle of Bull Run, Virginia. Jackson owned six slaves at the time of the war. The monument showed him mounted on his horse, Sorrel, whose bones were formally interred at VMI in 1997. The bronze monument was located on Monument Avenue, on which five statues of Confederate leaders were erected, with public funding, between 1890 and 1925. The Jackson Monument was a symbol of the “Lost Cause” movement that began at the time, which celebrated the Confederacy as a futile effort to maintain “states’ rights,” or local government. The monument’s sculptor was Frederick Sievers, who had trained in Europe, and designed Confederate monuments in New York and Pennsylvania, as well as Virginia. The monument was removed in 2020.